Ford Says He Won't Run for Senate, Citing Possible Damage to Party

By MICHAEL BARBARO

Published: March 2, 2010

Harold E. Ford Jr., the former Tennessee congressman who has sought to parlay his star power and Wall Street connections into a political career in New York, has decided not to challenge Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand in the Democratic primary this September, according to friends and advisers.

After traveling the state on a closely watched tour, he told friends that he could prevail but feared that an ugly campaign would leave the winner drained of cash and vulnerable to a Republican challenger at a time when the Democratic Party's filibuster-proof majority in the United States Senate has evaporated.

''I've examined this race in every possible way, and I keep returning to the same fundamental conclusion: If I run, the likely result would be a brutal and highly negative Democratic primary -- a primary where the winner emerges weakened and the Republican strengthened,'' Mr. Ford wrote in an opinion article on The New York Times Web Site on Monday night and in Tuesday's issue.

The possibility of a Senate campaign in New York by the telegenic Mr. Ford, who has been working as a vice chairman of Merrill Lynch and a political commentator on NBC since moving to New York in 2006, had riveted New York's political world and touched off a furious behind-the-scenes effort to keep him out of the race.

After Mr. Ford acknowledged his interest in the Senate seat in January, Democratic leaders expressed fear that a tough primary battle with Ms. Gillibrand would endanger what is considered a safe Democratic seat at a time when Republicans are seeking to mount challenges across the country.

That anxiety has escalated as Mortimer B. Zuckerman, the publisher of The Daily News, began weighing the possibility of entering the campaign as a Republican, raising the prospect that a billionaire opponent, who can spend unlimited sums of money, will await the winner of the Democratic primary.

Mr. Ford, the son of a long-serving Democratic congressman in Memphis, wrote in The Times, ''I refuse to do anything that would help Republicans win a Senate seat in New York, and give the Senate majority to the Republicans.''

But he faced practical -- and mundane -- obstacles as well, like a big fund-raising gap with Ms. Gillibrand and little time to close it. His advisers estimated that he needed to collect $15 million over the next six months. Mr. Ford is known as a thoroughbred in the fund-raising world, and his well-heeled backers, like the financier Steven Rattner and Richard Plepler, the co-president of HBO, had pledged to help him raise money. But it was unclear how Mr. Ford would raise a staggering $2.5 million a month, especially with Democratic leaders urging donors to stick with Ms. Gillibrand, who has already raised more than $7 million for the race.

Reacting to Mr. Ford's decision, a spokesman for the Gillibrand campaign, Glen Caplin, said, ''Senator Gillibrand has shown that she takes a back seat to no one when it comes to fighting for New York, and no matter who her opponent is this fall, she will wage a vigorous campaign on her strong record and her vision for New York.''

From the start, Mr. Ford's potential candidacy angered national Democratic Party leaders by disrupting plans for what was planned as a seamless Gillibrand nomination. Harry Reid of Nevada, the Senate majority leader, called Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg to discourage him from supporting Mr. Ford, and Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York met personally with Mr. Ford to argue against his candidacy.

At first, the organized campaign seemed to embolden Mr. Ford. He branded those who asked him to stay out as ''bullying party bosses'' and sought to portray himself as a political outsider taking on an out-of-touch establishment. When his aides commissioned a poll of New York voters to test the viability of his candidacy, they described him as bringing ''needed change to Washington'' and ''independent of Albany.''

Despite his relative newness to the state -- he did not become an official resident until 2009 -- dozens of influential Democratic donors urged him to run, saying they were underwhelmed by Ms. Gillibrand, a former upstate congresswoman who was appointed to the Senate by Gov. David A. Paterson last year after a muddled search to replace Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Ms. Gillibrand long ago locked up most of the state's Democratic county chairman, but Mr. Ford doubted the depth of her support: several upstate mayors privately encouraged him to run, arguing that an appointed senator should be tested in a primary.

His pollster, Douglas Schoen, was convinced that Mr. Ford had a strong chance of defeating Ms. Gillibrand.

Mr. Ford's introduction to the state's electorate, however, was rocky, and at times, awkward. He told The Times that he had visited Staten Island via helicopter, apparently unaware that residents of the borough are preoccupied with the dearth of public transportation there.

PHOTO: Harold E. Ford Jr. at the State Assembly in January. He said Monday that a primary against Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand would be ''highly negative.'' (PHOTOGRAPH BY NATHANIEL BROOKS FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES)